Maryland Child Care Administrative Data Analysis

The federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) provides funding for child care subsidies to help low-income parents who are in an approved work, training, and/or education activity pay for child care. The goal of the Maryland Child Care Administrative Data Analysis Cooperative Agreement was to use research to refine policies and practices related to child care subsidies. These changes were aimed at facilitating greater continuity and stability in subsidized child care, and in turn, making services more family-friendly and supportive of positive child outcomes.

The federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) provides funding for child care subsidies to help low-income parents who are in an approved work, training, and/or education activity pay for child care. The goal of the Maryland Child Care Administrative Data Analysis Cooperative Agreement was to use research to refine policies and practices related to child care subsidies. These changes were aimed at facilitating greater continuity and stability in subsidized child care, and in turn, making services more family-friendly and supportive of positive child outcomes.

The project was conducted by Child Trends and partners at the Maryland State Department of Education and the Regional Economic Studies Institute at Towson University. The U.S. Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation funded the project.

The team used child care subsidy administrative data from Maryland to address three research objectives:

(1) describe longitudinal patterns in the continuity of subsidy spells, and identify differences in these patterns by child, family, and community characteristics;
(2) examine the association between use of accredited care and continuity in subsidized care arrangements; and
(3) examine whether Maryland’s shift to a private, centralized subsidy case management system was associated with changes in the length of eligibility periods and voucher length.

The project started in 2013 and ended in 2017. The following materials describe the research and make recommendations for CCDF administrators and researchers.